


first breath, second life

by mintyfreshness



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, gay immortal soulmates yes please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25426879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintyfreshness/pseuds/mintyfreshness
Summary: He comes to with the greatest and most unexpected gasp of air he has ever taken in his life.Well, says a quiet voice in the back of his head,isn’t itlivesplural now?And the voice is right.Because he has a very distinct, very disturbing recollection of choking on his own blood not even minutes prior.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 65
Kudos: 640





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my intent with this work is not so much to focus on the historical context of Joe and Nicky's relationship, but in the little moments that defined their friendship and relationship in the very beginning. I have done my best to research and strive for accuracy when writing the background context, but I am not a historian and am aware that I will likely have made some mistakes. 
> 
> my intention is not and will never be to paint anyone or anything in a negative or offensive light, but I do recognise that my white privilege and lack of knowledge means that I will inevitably get this wrong in places. I encourage people who know more about this than me to call me out on it so that I can correct it and learn from it.
> 
> I hope you enjoy x  
> \- minty
> 
> [some minor edits/tidying up made 20/9/2020]

He comes to with the greatest and most unexpected gasp of air he has ever taken in his life.

_Well,_ says a quiet voice in the back of his head, _isn’t it_ lives _plural now?_ And the voice is right.

Because he has a very distinct, very disturbing recollection of choking on his own blood not even minutes prior.

For what feels like an eternity, waking up feels a lot like the last few seconds of dying. Before, no matter how much he coughed, the weight of blood in his lungs became only heavier and heavier until he had no energy left to even attempt to shift it, and could only lie there and watch the black spots grow across the sky until his eyes rolled back in his head and he felt no more. Now, though, it comes in reverse; with each breath, his lungs fill more cleanly, the tightness in his chest eases, the ache in his head subsides. And within seconds, lying under the baking sun, Nicolò di Genova raises a hand to the wound on his throat that ended his life and finds… nothing.

He sits up.

A quick survey of his body reveals that his torso is covered in his own blood, still sticky and warm, but it no longer flows out of him. Even the minor scratches, he notices when glancing down at his arms, have healed, returning his skin to its unblemished, pre-battle condition.

The war that he has died for rages on around him, but further away now, and quieter too. While he had lain on the floor and begged God for a swift death, the fighting had moved on, closer to the scant tree coverage nearby. For several hundred metres, he sits alone among the dead. 

He turns to his left, heart racing slightly in anticipation of what he will find there. He can’t tell if it’s relief or sadness that floods him when he sees his last opponent still motionless on the ground, dark eyes closed, the blood pooling on his abdomen and in the dip between his collarbones beginning to dry a little in the heat. It no longer pulses freely from him, as it had done when Nicolò had pulled his sword free from its death blow, mere seconds before the enemy had raised his long, jagged knife and slashed at Nicolò’s throat in last-ditch retribution. _If I’m going down, you’re coming with me,_ his eyes seemed to scream as Nicolò fell to the floor beside him.

He’s not sure which of them died first. He’d paid attention at the start, listening to the man at his left rasp for breath and moan out what must have been prayers in the raspy, guttural language of these lands. But then the blood began trickling into his lungs and he became a little preoccupied with… well, choking to death. 

Death.

The thought reverberates around his skull as unpleasantly as the clanging of a church bell, and he clutches at his hair and at his impossibly unblemished neck and tries to make sense of it. He’d died. He’d _died_. Taken a final wound to his neck, after days of fighting and other smaller injuries. Lain in his own blood. Actually ceased breathing and left this earth. Come back from it and felt… nothing. 

So much for the kingdom of heaven. But then, he had seen _them_ in the darkness between his final breath and his first, and maybe they were angels. Two women, both dark haired; one with brown eyes, the other’s the colour of the Mediterranean in the summer. Nicolò knows that they are far away from him, the lush forests behind their faces totally foreign compared to the arid desert around him. But angels they must have been, impossibly beautiful, and immortal just like him.

Is that what he is now? He cannot refute the evidence that is his heart pounding in his chest and the smoothness on his neck where there ought to be a gaping hole and the indescribable _feeling_ of breathing for the first time again. He sits among hundreds of people, but they are all dead, even the man next to him. And he has never felt more alone. And even if they were all breathing and of sound mind, he doubts very much that any of them could make any sense of this.

A shake of his head clears these thoughts away. He has spent enough time wallowing in self-pity now. The war rages on, and as long as he remains on this earth, his duty to fight in it continues - if not simply because he knows not what else he should do instead.

Pushing himself to his feet, he brushes what he can of the blood and dirt off his tunic, stoops down to retrieve his sword and sheath it back in its scabbard-

A hand roughly seizes his ankle.

He whirls on instinct, sword redrawn in one swift motion, and the tip stopping just shy of taking the skin of the man’s nose stops.

And his enemy... his enemy just laughs. Braces the hand not wrapped around Nicolò’s ankle behind him and tips his head back and roars with laughter.

Nicolò yanks his foot free in a panic and stumbles a few paces backwards, almost falling over another corpse. For God to have saved him is a miracle, yes - a blessing that he will give thanks for every day that he continues to live - but it appears that God has also seen fit to have spared his enemy as well. A sick irony, if ever there was one.

Perhaps this is why the man is laughing.

The sight of it fuels a rage inside of him that he knows will only end with the man’s death. God has granted them a second life each - but surely that is the extent of it. Surely one man could not survive two deaths within minutes of each other.

Three quick slashes across the man’s torso and he falls back heavily into the dirt, the last of his laughter dying with the gurgles in his throat. And then it is quiet again.

Nicolò sighs and drops to one knee next to him, feeling his own heart thump erratically in his mouth as he watches the man die for a second time. He waits until his chest stops rising, ‘til the blood stops running from the new wounds, ‘til the light fades from his eyes in a way that is far too familiar by now, after weeks of war.

And yet.

Just as he is about to rise to his feet and set off back to the camp, wondering how exactly he will explain the blood all over his clothes despite his lack of injuries, the impossible happens again.

The soft squelch of skin knitting itself back together brings his attention back instantly, and he finds he cannot look away as the man’s wounds close within seconds and his chest begins to rise and fall once more and his eyelids snap open, dark eyes contracting in the bright sunlight.

Nicolò stumbles back to his feet, one hand immediately reaching for the pommel of his sword.

“What in the name of…?” 

The man coughs softly, and then sits up on his knees in one swift movement. It takes him a moment to look round at Nicolò, but when he does, the same smile as before reappears on his face. He speaks with a chuckle, and Nicolò does not know enough of his language to know all of what he is saying, only a few words. _God. Praise. Enemy. Death_.

Nicolò’s enemy rises to his feet and draws his scimitar with a feral glint in his eyes.

Their battle starts anew.

* * *

It goes on for a while.

Neither of them stay dead for very long, and the other is usually so injured that he cannot escape very far. And so they find themselves trapped in a never-ending loop.

Nicolò loses count of the deaths after a dozen or so. After that, they all begin blending into one in his memory, so similar they are. Punctured lungs, three times. Head wounds, four. Once, his opponent even manages to break his lower leg, forcing Nicolò to his knees and making him an easy target for the knife shoved quickly between his ribs.

Each time, he wakes and feels his body knit itself back together within seconds. Each time, he stumbles back to his feet, ready to begin the fight again.

No one sees them. Or, at least, no one comes to help. The two men hack away at each other alone in their corner of the desert, far away from the rest of the battle.

(Nicolò is almost glad for this. It’s not as if he could explain what’s going on, anyway.)

* * *

A long time passes before he wakes on this occasion - probably the longest of his deaths so far, if he had to guess. As he feels the tendons in his neck regrow and the bones of his spine crack back into place (a highly unpleasant sensation which he would not voluntarily repeat in a hurry), his eyes fall open to a cloudless night and the sight of a million stars far above him and he realises that he is alone again.

Truly alone, this time, for his opponent is no longer by his side, nor anywhere visible from where he sits on the ground.

It is his own fault. As his throat was torn apart anew by his enemy’s jagged knife, his own thrust of his sword landed wide, barely grazing the other man’s side. The shallow wound had already healed by the time Nicolò hit the floor, and then he could only focus on the white hot pain lancing all down his body until death found him once again. The man’s footsteps had just about faded from earshot as he fell into the darkness.

He does not blame the other man for leaving. Except he does.

Because despite their conflict, the opposing sides of the war on which they fight, there is something that binds them together that is beyond worldly explanation, something that they share only between the two of them.

Well, that’s not _strictly_ true.

He saw more of them, this time. The two women who have haunted his dreams since this nightmare began, each time their faces clearer and clearer, more tangible. More real than a construction of his mind could fathom.

And for the first time, he saw _him_ too.

The unmistakable colour of his eyes, the brush of his beard, the sound of his _sair_ being drawn in his defence, the decoration of the sword's handle, twisted loosely in his grasp. Even without the giveaways, how could it be anyone else?

The night has fallen now, and the sounds of battle draw to a close. Nicolò climbs to slightly unsteady feet and realises there is no one in sight who is moving. Or breathing. 

With reluctance, he orientates himself on the field and sets off back in the general direction of his camp from the previous night. Was it really only a day ago that he sat around the fire with his friends and sang and drank and pretended they were not going off to war again the next morning? And now his friends are nowhere to be found and he has died over and over and the world just doesn’t seem the same any more. Perhaps it will never be.

He walks in silence for a very long time, his gaze trained on the ground to ensure his footing. All around him is the carnage of the day’s battle, men and horses and weapons strewn across the dry soil, a veritable feast for the pickpockets who will inevitably appear to scurry around collecting wares before the priests come back to bury their dead. He steps carefully, not wishing to disturb anyone.

The moon is high in the sky when, in the distance, he finally makes out the light of the fire in the middle of the camp, and heads towards it with renewed purpose. He is only minutes away from food and warmth and a bed now. Perhaps he will wake in the morning, and this will all have been a terrible dream. The campfire glows warmer as he approaches it, but there is no accompanying noise. No chatter, no clatter of pots. It is eerily quiet, but for the scuffles of one man. A few steps closer and Nicolò can make out his features. 

He just about manages to smother his gasp. 

His opponent lives to fight another day, it seems. Even if his dreams cannot be relied on for information, he cannot doubt the truth in front of his eyes. And he finds that he has neither the desire nor the energy to engage in yet another fight with this man. Perhaps he feels the same. Perhaps they can find some kind of truce, even if it just for the night while they rest and eat.

He is just about to stand up and announce his presence when a third person clatters into the clearing. Nicolò dives for cover; by the fire, his indestructible companion scrambles for his weapon a few feet away.

“Heathen bastard,” Nicolò’s countryman hisses, drawing his sword. He looks down at the floor, observing the bloodstains on the ground. The men who had previously inhabited the camp are long gone; Nicolò knows not where they are, but he is almost certain, for reasons he cannot explain, that his opponent has not harmed them himself. “Murderer. Thief. I will end your pathetic life in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.”

The foreigner does not reach his blade in time. The longsword tears a chuck from his forearm raised in defence of his face, then slices across his thigh and stabs at his stomach, ripping the skin harshly. He yelps at the blows, and Nicolò freezes stiff. Through all the battles they’ve fought, every time they have maimed and wounded each other, he has never heard a cry of pain like that which passes his lips now.

The foreigner lies on the ground, convulsing, hands bloodied by the state of his abdomen. For the first time, Nicolò sees something akin to fear on the man's face.

And even though Nicolò is almost completely sure of what will happen next - that the foreigner will likely die only temporarily before standing up and continuing the fight he cannot lose - he finds himself unable to let it happen. _Not again._

“No!” he cries, darting out of the undergrowth and ramming his countryman through the back before he can even lift his sword to make the final blow. There is a sickening crunch as his blade pierces the man’s sternum at the front of his chest, then a thud as the man falls heavily to his knees. Gasping for breath that does not come, he falls to one side in the dirt and is still within secondd. Weapon hastily abandoned, Nicolò clambers over the dead man and runs to the foreigner’s side. 

He is not breathing.

Nicolò exhales lightly. Alright. It is just taking a little longer this time. He can wait.

Several more seconds pass.

He cannot wait.

“ _Destati_ ” he mutters desperately, poking his companion in the arm. “ _Destati_. Please. Don’t leave me.”

Surely it will not end now. Surely the curse of immortality will not choose this moment to lift, just as Nicolò has realised that he does not want this man to die, does not want to see him killed by his own hand or anyone else’s. He does not want to be alone in this new world where all he knows for certain is that this man is like him too, maybe not the only one, but the only one whom he knows and understands, even if it’s only on a very limited level.

“ _Destati_ ,” he whispers one more time, a breathless plea into the night.

And the man on the floor obeys, gasping back into life in a manner that is now far more familiar to Nicolò than it really has any right to be. Nicolò falls back on his haunches and drops his head in thanks - to god, to anyone that’s listening - that he is not alone.

The man splutters for a few more seconds and then sits up, looking round at Nicolò in earnest. His lips break into a smile - not the feral declaration of war that he has become accustomed to, but a kinder, gentler emotion. The incisions on his arm and thigh have already closed and smoothed over, and his posture is relaxed as he takes in Nicolò’s protective stance next to him.

“You... help me?” he asks in broken Ligurian. Nicolò’s eyes widen at the familiar tongue.

“You speak my language?”

“Small. I travel before the war. Some words, good.”

“You speak more of it than I know of Arabic,” Nicolò admits with a smile. His companion laughs, and pats the ground next to him. An invitation.

“No more death today?” he asks, his dark eyes wide with an honesty that cannot be faked. Nicolò shakes his head.

“Not today,” he agrees. He reaches for the tie at his belt that holds his empty scabbard, and releases it, letting the leather clatter to the ground. “No more fighting.”

“No more fighting.” The man's lips curve into a smile.

And that's all there is to it.

It’s not the last time that either of them die - not even the last time they die at each other’s hand - but as they scavenge the camp for food and begin trading words in each other’s languages, for the first time, it feels something a little like understanding. A little like friendship.

(Neither of them know yet that it’s the seed for something eternally more wonderful.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hitching my wagon to this party, working on the “cake” theory of fan content
> 
> but hey!!! gay immortal soulmates!! yes please!!!
> 
> second chapter now finished and posted below :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the friends to lovers bit

The first months together are difficult - there’s no other word for to describe it. Several times a day in the beginning, Nicolò questions what he is doing in abandoning his cause and his upbringing and almost everything he has ever known in order to do… something, arm in arm with a man he once readily called enemy. Killed him, simply because he was told it was the right thing to do. And worse, he believed it was so.

Yusuf faces similar struggles, he knows, and yet they don’t talk about it. Nicolò tried, once, to raise it in conversation over dinner, but Yusuf stopped him with a wave of his hand and an expression that Nicolò couldn’t quite make out in the dim light of the campfire.

“I have my battles, as you have yours,” he said softly in accented Ligurian. “I think we need to fight them alone, for now at least.” So they don’t talk about it.

Speaking their hybrid language of Arabic, Ligurian and at least three more Nicolò knows only a handful of words in, quickly realised as the only way they can have any form of detailed communication, is taxing and tiring for both of them. With only each other for company they soon run out of new conversation while they try to learn more, so they spend a lot of time walking in silence, particularly in the beginning. Nicolò is grateful for the time to be left alone with his own thoughts, but equally so that Yusuf gradually begins to initiate conversion between them, more frequently as time goes on.

Their lack of emotional direction is not aided by their daily physical struggles. Nicolò is not welcome in some towns, where his pale skin brings painful memories to the surface in people who have lost loved ones in the fight against the European invaders. Yusuf must duck off the road and hide as they pass mounted units from Gaul and Britain and the Empire, for fear of torture and imprisonment. Between these two restrictions, the places where they can seek food, water, and shelter are limited. Yusuf suggests some places for them to go, but Nicolò does not understand most of his justifications, and the frustration of their poor communication and the lack of trust he holds in his reluctant new ally means that these discussions usually end in juvenile squabbles wherein they each rant at each other in their own languages until one of them gives up and goes to sleep. 

And even sleep is a precious commodity, out on the road with only their blades and quick thinking to protect them. The first time they are jumped, it is a heavy defeat and they both go down with large abdominal wounds within minutes. The thieves, though, are not quick to move on, and thus die with cries of surprise and incredulity as the men they believed dead rise from the ground and run them through with their own weapons. Nicolò feels guilty about it for a moment, but it is eased by the feeling of relief when they search the men’s horses and come up with much needed food and money, enough to see them through to the next major town with ease. The relief of this stress also eases the tension between the two men, and their conversations gradually become less stilted as they continue their journey north. 

What Nicolò struggles with most of all, though, is guilt. He feels heavy with it, from his waking awareness to the haze of his thoughts as sleep finds him every night. Guilt, for his abandonment of the cause while his brothers-in-arms continue to lay down their lives far away back in Jerusalem. Guilt, for abandoning them to work closely with the enemy, no less. Guilt, for his family, whom by now will undoubtedly have been told of the destruction wrought upon their forces by the native armies and will be worrying for him, likely think him dead. And in a sense, he is dead. Ironic, he thinks to himself, considering his new inability to remain truly dead. 

But he _is_ dead, in the sense that he knows that he cannot return to the life he enjoyed before. One life ended with his first death at Yusuf’s hands, and a second began from the moment he opened his eyes and breathed again. There cannot be an overlap between the two, no mixing of worlds. For now, all he has is the sword at his waist and the mule carrying his meager supplies. And Yusuf.

The frustration this all generates lends him towards irritability and petulance, and while Yusuf has some patience for it, he, too, is clearly working through his own emotions, and sometimes when they’re both having particularly bad days, it all comes to a head.

It takes several months for them to stop lashing out at each other. Granted, they only really have one more big, actually physical fight - perhaps a season into their uneasy alliance where they’re still having awkward, clunky conversations in that unholy melange of languages that an outsider couldn’t have any hope of understanding, and Nicolò accidentally says something that does not translate literally (and means something _very_ different because of it) and before he can even begin to retract his garbled Arabic, Yusuf has launched at him from across the road with indignation rampant across his face.

It ends quite quickly with both of them on the ground clutching their wounds and feeling monumentally stupid (and also grateful that they’re in the middle of nowhere with no-one to explain themselves to), but as they lie on the ground waiting for their bodies to stitch themselves back together, after Nicolò manages to stumble out an apology and an explanation for what he was _trying_ to say and Yusuf’s lips form a silent “oh” of understanding, they start laughing about it, and they don’t stop until tears stream down both their faces and their wounds have long since healed. And after that, the last of their animosity kind of just… fades away. 

And slowly, his preconceptions disappear too, and he can experience the beauty of the world around him with a newfound appreciation. The desert is dry and swelteringly hot, yes, but it shimmers with a warmth of colour that he could not even begin to imagine had he not seen it with his own eyes. The vegetation that grows appears at first sight to be dry and lifeless too, but then he observes Yusuf reach into the thickets and withdraw a handful of gleaming berries and he learns again that things are not always as they first seem.

And slowly, he sees the artistry where previously there was only hatred and malice. He listens to Yusuf praying each day with a renewed wonder, losing himself in the lyrical beauty of his prayers. Every night, he listens to him speak for hours about the great cities of Baghdad and Cairo and Aleppo that he has visited in the course of his life, learns with great rapture about the advancements in science and medicine and literature that these foreign civilisations are making, progress that his countrymen could only dream of making within their lifetimes.

And slowly, he learns his companion, _truly_ learns him as a person and not just as his uneasy ally. Yusuf, who laughs at his own jokes and stumbles over his feet when he first stands up in the morning. Yusuf, who always offers him the first bowl of food at dinner time and eventually takes to sharpening Nicolò’s sword for him unprompted. (Nicolò protests the first few times. He stops when he realises that Yusuf is doing a better job of it than him, and instead offers his thanks when he hands it back over, gleaming in the light of the fire.) 

Yusuf, who hands the last of their food to a group of children three days out from their destination without any hesitation. Nicolò raises an eyebrow at him from where he stands a short distance away guarding their horse (reluctantly stolen from an Anglo company who were making their way down to Jerusalem), but holds his tongue. They are another few miles up the road before Yusuf breaks the silence. 

“We can come back from starvation,” he says without preamble, using Nicolò’s language to ensure he understands. “They will not.”

Nicolò does not disagree in the slightest. And that’s the end of that conversation.

They manage to reach Damascus without starving to death and even though Yusuf has spoken at great length about the wonder of their modern cities and he thought he’d been prepared, Nicolò doesn’t have room to process his guilt for a while, because the only sensation he can manage is _awe_.

Yusuf takes his hand and guides him through the crowded streets as Nicolò stares in wonder at the sights around them. The city glows with a vibrancy that he cannot draw comparison to, overflowing with spirit and kindness and beauty. Nothing like this exists in the Empire, he reasons, for surely he would have heard stories of it from the travelling merchants who came to Genoa’s shores with their wares from all across Europe. 

The first thing they buy is a heap of dates, and Nicolò almost cries out at the wondrous sensation of flavour bursting out across his tongue, the first food that either of them have eaten in days. For a few minutes, they scuffle good-naturedly for the bag until they have both eaten their fill and the unpleasant sensation of hunger has been abated once again. 

A short while later, as Yusuf stands at a stall and haggles for the three ibex horns they’d hunted in the last week, Nicolò looks out into the city and allows himself to voice the thoughts that summarise the last few months of internal anguish he has suffered.

“We were wrong,” he whispers to himself, fists tightening at his sides. “We had no right to come here and attempt to change this. No right at all.”

“ _What’s that?_ ” Yusuf asks, focused on handing their kills over to the trader. 

“ _Nothing_ ,” he replies in Arabic that is slowly becoming less terrible. “ _I was simply admiring the city. It is beyond what I had thought was possible._ ”

Yusuf grins, sweeping their earnings into the pouch at his waist. “ _It is beautiful_ ,” he agrees as they push back into the throng on the street. “ _But beautiful as it is, it has nothing on Tunis_. _If we ever go to the Maghreb you will see what I mean_.”

Nicolò stops short. “ _Tunis? Is that where you come from?_ ”

His companion nods, raising his voice slightly so that Nicolò can hear him more clearly over the noise of the crowd. “ _I was born and raised there as a small boy. My father’s work meant that we called many cities home as I grew older, but it remains a special place to me_.” His face darkens slightly. “ _I have not been there in many years now. I would imagine that it has change substantially._ ”

And in the absence of any other apparent purpose for their newfound eternity, Nicolò resolves, then, that he will do what he can to make amends for his actions and that if that is where Yusuf wants to go, that is where they will go next. He tells Yusuf as much in hurried and clumsy Arabic.

The excited smile that breaks across Yusuf’s face at his suggestion remains at the front of his mind for several weeks.

* * *

For the second time in his life, Nicolò walks the path between Damascus and Jerusalem, but there are many marked differences compared to his first travels with Yusuf.

For one thing, they are getting on infinitely better now. During the several weeks they passed in Damascus, preparing for the journey to Tunis, they found themselves becoming an unlikely team. A few mornings into their stay, Nicolò woke one morning feeling unexpectedly refreshed. It wasn’t until several hours later, as they walked through the market together, that he realised why.

As he and Yusuf took down the men who had attempted to rob a woman of her stall’s affairs and money, he felt no need to look over his shoulder in self-defence, knowing that Yusuf would have his back covered in the same way that Nicolò protected his. When all eight men were on the floor in various states of injury and posed no further immediate threat to anyone, he allowed himself to glance over his shoulder, only to find Yusuf doing the same thing. They shared a smile for a few moments, before the woman rushed forward to thank them, and the bustle of the world faded back in. And then he had realised: _partnership_.

Their improved relationship isn’t the only new positive. For another, they’re no longer at risk of starving, thanks to the myriad of small jobs they manage to pick up on the journey south. Protecting a small caravan of goods for a week; taking out a pack of wild dogs that is threatening a family’s flock; serving as translators for a group of academics in Amman when the man they had hired to do the job fails to show up at their meeting place. But the work and its pay is only just enough to sustain them, even living frugally, and the lack of money is a constant source of worry for Nicolò. He knows, of course, that dying of starvation would be only a minor inconvenience for them, but he’d still really rather avoid it as far as possible.

They finally get really lucky in Jerusalem: a large caravan of goods is departing for Cairo within the week, and in need of two hired swords to protect them on the journey from thieves and bandits-

“ _-and crocodiles_ ,” Yusuf smirks to Nicolò on their last night before leaving Jerusalem, in the cramped room that was the only shelter they could find at short notice.

“ _Crocodiles?_ ” Nicolò asks, trying the word out carefully. “ _What in God’s name is a crocodile?_ ”

Yusuf chortles; Nicolò cannot tell if it is at his poor attempt at trying to make the noun singular or his measured curiosity at the idea of a crocodile.

“ _You may well find out,_ ” he chuckles, climbing into bed. “ _Sleep well, Nicolò, for the crocodiles might keep you awake tomorrow!_ ”

“ _But what_ are _they?_ ” he presses. “ _Are they dangerous? Do we need to make additional preparations?_ Yusuf?”

The only response he gets is muffled laughter.

* * *

The road to Cairo is hot and long, and they do see crocodiles - but, rather disappointingly, it’s only at a distance for the majority of the journey. The animals on the whole seem to know better than to come for large groups of people, and so they skulk in the darkness, too far away for them to justify a kill. Yusuf raises it as a suggestion one evening, when they are on the last leg of their journey and the last skirmish with attempted robbers they had to bother with was weeks ago and they are both a little… well, bored.

“ _Come on_ ,” he says, pacing backwards and forwards like a child with too much energy. “ _Just one. We’d be back before the rest of them even knew we were gone_.”

“ _You said it was dangerous,_ ” Nicolò says calmly, looking out across the desert at the first burgeoning indication that dawn approaches.

Yusuf scoffs. “ _You know there is no real danger to us,_ ” he replies, standing in front of Nicolò with his arms outstretched in a plea. “ _Do you know how much money a crocodile skin would get us in Cairo? We’d not want for food for months!_ ”

“I _t’s not worth the risk,_ ” Nicolò insists. “ _What if we made a mistake and let our clothes become bloodied and torn? How do we explain_ that _to the others?_ ”

“Nicolò-”

“Yusuf.”

They stare at one another for a second in a silent battle of wills and Nicolò resists the urge to fidget under Yusuf’s gaze. He understands the points he’s making - agrees with him, in fact, that between them they are more than skilled enough to take a crocodile down - but he cannot give assent to it. He’s said that the risk of them being exposed is too great, and there is some truth in it, but the real reason he’s reluctant is that he doesn’t want to see Yusuf harmed. 

It’s been a long time since either of them have had to call on their blessing, curse - whatever it is - mostly because their opponents of late have simply not presented enough of a challenge. And Nicolò has thus become accustomed to seeing Yusuf’s unmarked skin when he removes his clothing to bathe and wash, likes the fact that blood and gore are not currently a regular part of their lives. He has no desire to see his companion’s blood and innards spilled on the ground and be reminded of all the terrible things he’s done to him in the past, no matter what the cause of his injuries now.

Yusuf clearly sees that Nicolò is unwilling to concede the point and drops down onto the floor next to him with a dramatic sigh.

“ _Alright_ ,” he says, nudging their shoulders together. “ _But you’ll have to settle for inferior food on the next leg of the journey_.”

“ _With your cooking, there wouldn’t be much improvement regardless of the quality of the food_ ,” he retorts. But there’s no bite behind it, and they find themselves laughing softly together as the first rays of sunlight peek over the horizon.

(Two days later, Yusuf gets his wish to slay a crocodile anyway when one sneaks up on the group at a water stop and snaps at the ankles of the camels. A cry goes up on the other side of the caravan, and the two men are there instantly, swords drawn and ready for some action. They take it down together within minutes, and the kill means that there will be fresh meat for dinner that evening and a high quality skin to boot.

Yusuf pretends not to be smug about it. Nicolò pretends not to notice, but the smile that plays on his lips gives him away in an instant.)

* * *

The dreams continue through all of this.

He and Yusuf discuss them quietly between themselves each morning as they break camp, and Nicolò finds it eternally reassuring that he does not have to explain this phenomenon to Yusuf. Instead, as soon as they are both awake, the conversation begins again where it left off the previous morning - _what were they wearing? Did you see any insignia? Writing?_ \- any clues they can piece together to work out where the women might be.

Their quest is aided greatly by Yusuf’s gift for drawing.

Nicolò does not even know of his companion’s talent until they reach Cairo, and the caravan pays up the handsome fee that Yusuf had ferociously negotiated weeks ago before departing Jerusalem. This, combined with the crocodile skin that takes half a day of bartering with local merchants to agree a price for, leaves them incredibly well-off. Even after they have bought their food and supplies for the next week and had Nicolò’s scabbard repaired by a local craftsman, it is still more money than either of them have held in their entire lives. Sat in their room for the night in a rest house on the outskirts of the city, Yusuf turns to Nicolò and says “I think we have earned ourselves a little luxury, don’t you?”, handing him a few coins with a quiet excitement about him.

Nicolò ventures out into the street and is immediately lost in the intrigue of Cairo, similar to Jerusalem and Damascus in spirit, but very much its own sprawling metropolis. Down an alleyway with its walls coated in fabrics in every colour he could imagine, he finds a bookseller and trades his purchases from Damascus and some of his precious coin for new reads - some in Arabic to improve his writing, but also some in Latin that feel tremendously like home to peruse. They have little room for luxuries amongst their scant belongings, but reading is something that has always given Nicolò a sense of comfort and escapism, and so he always makes space for a couple of books within his bag.

When he returns to the room after dark, Yusuf is sitting on his bed completely lost in his drawing under the soft light of the oil lamp. Nicolò takes care to close the door quietly behind him so as not to disturb him, but his efforts are nullified by the creaking of the bed as he sinks onto it.

Yusuf looks up from the parchment and waves his hand dismissively at Nicolò’s grimace of apology. “ _I missed the feel of charcoal on my fingers,_ ” he explains without preamble. “ _I am very out of practice, but I do not think that this is a poor first attempt_.” He holds the drawing up so that Nicolò can see it.

Nicolò gasps softly, and steps forward to take it in his hands, holding it up to the light. Yusuf has drawn Damascus as they had approached it at sunrise several months ago. It is simply constructed, lines and soft shading in only the monochrome of the charcoal, but the detail is accurate to a degree he had previously not thought possible, right down to the groups of travellers on the road.

“ _It is incredible_ ,” he admits, handing it back to Yusuf. “ _Almost as if you had drawn the image straight from my memory_.”

“ _That is high praise,_ ” Yusuf smiles. “ _Any artist would love to hear such things said of their work._ ”

“You more than earn it with creations that beautiful,” Nicolò says under his breath in his own language.

(Not quietly enough, apparently, because as he hands the drawing back, he sees Yusuf’s cheeks tinge ever so slightly pink.)

He tells himself later that night, as he tries to get his heart to settle enough to sleep, that the warmth he felt in his chest was from the drawing and the memories it evoked. Definitely not Yusuf’s smile and the softness of his eyes and his voice when he’d broken the comfortable silence between them to ask what Nicolò had bought at the market.

Once they’re on the road, Yusuf draws mostly in the evenings, but also sometimes during the day when they stop for rest while the sun is at its zenith and it is too hot to walk any great distance. A few weeks out of Cairo, Nicolò wakes from a short midday nap and rolls to his side to see that Yusuf has not been similarly idle, with two completed charcoal drawings held down under pebbles next to his hips to keep them from blowing away and a third one in progress in his lap. Nicolò smiles at how Yusuf’s tongue pokes out as he concentrates, observes intently the way the muscles in his forearm ripple as he drags the charcoal in broad strokes across the parchment.

“What have you drawn today?” he asks sleepily, dragging a hand across his face.

Yusuf startles a little, obviously not expecting him to have woken so soon. He gathers himself quickly and gestures down at the two on the floor. “The women,” he says, replying in Nicolò’s mother tongue. “I thought we might remember more from our dreams if we had images to guide us.”

Nicolò sits up as Yusuf goes back to work, and reaches for the nearest drawing. It’s a portrait of the smaller woman, the one from the east. She’s mid-laugh, an image Nicolò recalls from last night’s dream, and he smiles at the unbridled joy on her face.

“I wonder what they were laughing about,” he mutters aloud as he studies the picture more closely. It really is a wonderful likeness of her.

Yusuf shrugs, his attention still mostly on the third portrait in progress in his lap. “If we ever meet them, you can ask them,” he replies absently. Then he chuckles.

“How do you suppose the taller one’s neck is? What with having to lean down to kiss the shorter one all the time.”

Nicolò pauses in reaching for the other portrait. It is the first time either of them have referenced the obvious relationship between the two women. He suspects it is because of the similarity between their two situations that neither of them really knows how to address.

The dreams until now have been reflective of what Nicolò suspects is the normality of their lives. He has seen them walking along a ridge above a valley filled with thick foliage, swimming in a waterfall’s pool. Mostly, he sees them in combat, and he hopes never to face them himself because the two of them working together are completely formidable. And yes, underneath it all, he has worked out that the two of them are lovers. If the intimate nature of the way they look at each other had not tipped him off, the brushes of their lips they share in small moments every so often certainly would have done the job.

But last night, he had dreamt of the two of them dancing around a fire hand in hand, celebrating something, perhaps a victory in battle. And he watched as the shorter one pulled the taller one in close until they were pressed all against each other, foreheads touching. And then the taller one had cupped her companion’s face and brought her in for a gentle kiss. 

The touches had not stayed gentle for long. The dream had ended before it could be considered voyeuristic, but Nicolò’s cheeks still darken even just thinking about it in retrospect.

“They obviously make it work for them,” he replies carefully. “They have been together for a very long time. They care for each other deeply.”

_“I should like to have a love like that,_ ” Yusuf says in rusty Persian, somewhat wistfully. “ _To_ _have someone at my side that I cannot lose, that I trust completely._ ”

Nicolò tilts his head back and looks at the cloudless sky above them. “ _I think we all long to be the subject of someone’s affection. It is human nature to love, and be loved, no? I cannot say I have much, if any, experience of romantic attraction, but I do know that it is a terrible and wonderful thing. And I think it is given to us when we need it the most, even if we might not recognise it for what it is_.”

Yusuf is quiet for a long while after that, and when Nicolò looks across at him to find out why, he sees that he is lost in quiet contemplation. He breaks into a nervous smile, which Yusuf returns.

“ _And here I was thinking that I was the poetic one_ ,” he jokes. “ _You are giving me a run for my money_.”

“ _I do not think that you need to worry on that account_ ,” Nicolò replies. “ _My Arabic, as you continue to remind me, is passable at best. I think I shall leave the art to you for now, in whatever form it comes_. _You truly have a gift for it_.”

Yusuf looks down and shuffles his papers with an expression on his face that Nicolò cannot decipher, and as he does so, the corner of one peeks out of the stack a little. The edge of the drawing on it is just visible, smooth charcoal lines detailing what looks like a jawline. It is not one that Nicolò has seen before - he knows the faces of the two women very well by now and it is neither of them - and he peers closer out of curiosity.

“ _What’s that?_ ” he asks, reaching for it, but Yusuf snatches it close to his chest before he can even make contact with a “no!” hissing between his teeth. Nicolò is a little disconcerted by this sudden animosity after months of goodwill between them and Yusuf obviously sees this hurt on his face because he immediately softens.

“ _I am sorry,_ ” he mutters, shuffling the paper away into his bag. “ _It is private. I should not have left it where you might see it_.”

“ _My apologies_ ,” Nicolò says softly, eager to make amends. “ _I should not have intruded on your privacy like that._ ”

Yusuf shakes his head. “ _There is very little I keep from you,_ Nicolò di Genova,” he smiles. “ _I ask only that you grant me this one small secret until I feel able to share it with you_.”

“ _As you wish, my friend_.” It is the first time he has spoken this word aloud, and it shows in his cracked voice and poor pronunciation. But if the look on Yusuf’s face were his sole indication, Nicolò would believe that he had never spoken Arabic more perfectly.

* * *

After that, the touches start.

It begins with interactions that he could almost dismiss as accidental: Yusuf’s hand brushes his for a little longer than normal as they pass bowls between them during meals. Nicolò stands next to Yusuf to help him strap their bags to the mule one morning, and when their shoulders bump against each other, neither of them moves away from it. They walk together on the road, close enough that Nicolò’s arm often brushes against Yusuf’s. 

They lie down one night an arm’s length apart and when Nicolò comes to in the soft, pale light of dawn, he finds that Yusuf has rolled up against him in the night, his arm draping gently over his hip and his breath warm on the back of his neck.

And. Well.

His mind flits back to his parents, and how they had interacted in front him. They had not always been well off - Nicolò still recalls far too many dinnerless nights lying awake listening to his gurgling stomach - but the one thing their home had never been poor in was love. His father would return home for the evening and sweep his mother off her feet, and Nicolò and his siblings would lie on their stomachs in front of the fire and laugh along with their parents as they danced to their own music. And at night, when they were supposed to be sleeping, Nicolò would open his eyes as wide as he dared and watch his parents sit by the fire together, curled up so tightly in each other's arms that it he struggled to tell where one ended and the other began.

This is the closest paralell he can draw with how it feels to have Yusuf pressed up against him. And he has no idea what to make of that. So he lies there in the growing sunlight and tries to let himself just _feel_ and be happy.

Despite his prayers to the contrary, the sun continues to rise and Yusuf eventually wakes, shifting his arm awkwardly as he realises their entanglement.

“ _I am sorry_ ,” he begins hastily, but before he can stammer out more of an apology, Nicolò turns over so that they can make eye contact and shakes his head.

“ _You have nothing to apologise for_ ,” he insists. One hand darts down to grasp Yusuf’s where it rests on his hip and squeezes. “ _Nothing at all_.”

Yusuf stares at him then, and Nicolò is lost in the warmth of his eyes and the breath on his cheeks. And just as he thinks Yusuf starts moving towards him, their mule snorts and they both shoot to their feet, weapons drawn and ready against the danger that presents. 

It is nothing but passing traders; no threat to either of them. _Stupid mule_ , Nicolò curses silently, using words neither god nor his mother would approve of.

But the moment has been lost, and so Nicolò instead busies himself with finding some food to eat as Yusuf begins his first prayers of the day, and after that they eat together and the rest of their day continues as normal. Neither of them mentions it again.

They arrive into Tunis ten days later, and Nicolò gasps at the sight of the vibrant port town set right on the edge of the Mediterranean. The sea gleams as they make their way towards the waterfront, a beautiful, vibrant colour that Nicolò has no word to describe, in his language or any other.

“ _In Arabic, we would say fayrūzah_ ,” Yusuf supplies to him when he voices this out loud as they walk down the seafront at sunset. “ _The brightest of all blues_.”

“ _Fayrūzah_.” Nicolò tries the word out carefully. Yusuf smiles.

“ _In your accent, it is an even more beautiful word_ ,” he says quietly. And then he darts into a nearby shop and Nicolò is left wondering what on earth _that_ means.

* * *

They find themselves an abandoned house a few miles down the from Tunis, hidden away in a small valley with its own little stream and stable and it is exactly what they need for now. Nicolò can wake every morning and take only a few dozen steps before he feels the sand between his toes and the wind rushing across the water towards him. It is quiet and intimate and in the middle of nowhere and just what he needs.

Yusuf spends a lot of time going back and forth to the city, throwing himself back into the life of the city of his childhood. He leaves shortly after sunrise each day, usually returning mid afternoon with various supplies and news from the city. He often asks Nicolò to join him and occasionally he does so, eager to learn more of the city of Yusuf's childhood. But for the most part Nicolò just feels… tired. By now it has probably been a year since this all began, maybe a little longer, and in all that time they have hardly stopped moving. In the beginning, it was frantic and undefined, as the two of them fought desperately to make sense of their new world. Then, it was more predictable, as they sought jobs and learned more about each other, found common ground and began working together.

And now, it is on the precipice of something else, and he does not yet know what that _something_ might be, but all he knows is that what he feels for Yusuf is stronger than friendship and the bonds between family, something that is similar to the love he had for his siblings, although he could never put Yusuf in the same category as them. And it is all terribly confusing and yet the simplest thing ever and it makes his head spin to think about.

He is sat on the beach mulling this all over for the third afternoon in a row when he hears the sound of Yusuf’s footsteps approaching down the sand towards him. The sun is setting already; he has been out for a very long time today and Nicolò is relieved to have him return to him.

“ _I_ _brought you something_ ,” Yusuf says as he sits down on Nicolò’s right side, shoulders close enough to touch. Nicolò watches as Yusuf fiddles with one of the pouches for a few seconds, before producing a small jar with a cloth covering. He releases the ties holding the cotton down, and as he does, the smell of home wafts up to Nicolò’s face. His jaw drops.

“ _Agliata_ ,” he gasps, taking the jar from Yusuf’s proffered hand to confirm its contents. “ _How did you come about it?_ ”

“ _There were some merchants at the docks selling wares from Genoa today,_ ” Yusuf says. “ _I_ _remembered that you had mentioned it as something you had enjoyed as a boy. I thought you could show me how to make it for dinner._ ”

“ _We will need pasta to cook with it_ ,” Nicolò comments almost absentmindedly as his mind spins through the happy memories the familiar scent stirs.

“ _I managed to procure some of that too. I thought that maybe I might finally understand why you go on about it so much_.” 

“ _Are you mocking me?"_ he laughs.

“ _Would I ever?_ ” Yusuf smiles. “ _No, my friend, I thought simply that I could share in your culture as you have shared in mine, and that you might enjoy a taste of home after being away for so long._ ”

Nicolò looks back out across the water and sighs. 

“Genoa is not so far from here,” he says softly in his mother tongue. He points with his left hand. “Only across the sea, past the islands. It would not take more than a few days to sail in a good craft.”

Yusuf is quiet for long time.

“Do you intend to go home?” he finally says in a voice that is calm and measured on the surface, but Nicolò hears the real, panicked question underneath it. _Will you leave me?_

Nicolò shakes his head firmly. “No. I don’t want to,” he whispers. “Not… not when I have all I desire here.” 

He sucks up all the courage he can muster and shifts his right hand across until his little finger rests on the back of Yusuf’s knuckles, gently brushing back and forth. And then he looks pointedly at the waves and holds his breath.

In the periphery of his vision, he sees Yusuf turning slightly until his whole body is at a right angle to Nicolò’s shoulder, and Nicolò can feel his chest moving up and down against the top of his arm.

“ _Rajul jamil,_ ” he whispers. “Nicolò. Please tell me you are saying what I think you are.”

Yusuf’s hand slowly slides up his arm, and in its wake Nicolò feels the hair on his body stand on end and his breath become more laboured. He is rooted to the spot, his entire focus on the soft drag of Yusuf’s fingers across his clothes, until they reach the top of his collar and make contact with the skin of his neck.

“Yusuf,” he breathes, because that’s all he can manage. Their heads tilt closer together, eyes fluttering closed. Nicolò's fists tighten in the material of his trousers, Yusuf’s grip on the back of his head pulls ever so slightly and then-

_Oh_.

* * *

Later that night, tucked away in bed together, with Yusuf's lips tracing the shape of his collarbone and the rest of eternity spread out before them, Nicolò thinks he finally, _truly_ understands what love is supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my thanks to the lovely [Luna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/novapearlgray/pseuds/novapearlgray), who beta read for me and who has also written a fantastic Nicky/Joe fic that you should all go and read!
> 
> my eternal love and gratitude to every person who has read, left kudos, and commented. you are all wonderful people <3
> 
> be kind to yourself and others,
> 
> minty xoxo


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